The Heart of a Hero (A SPELLBOUND FALLS ROMANCE) Offered by Penguin Publishing Price: $7.99
A Tiny Bit Off, March 9, 2013 This review is from: The Heart of a Hero (A SPELLBOUND FALLS ROMANCE) (Kindle Edition) “Originally from the ancient mythical island of Atlantis, Nicholas has spent the last year deep in the mountains of Maine, serving as Director of Security for the Nova Mare and Inglenook resorts. Fully embracing his life in the twenty-first century, he finds himself irresistibly drawn to a trouble-prone employee, and is determined to keep her safe. The last thing Julia Campbell needs is a man with a hero complex, especially one as handsome and imposing as Nicholas. All she has to do is keep it together until her younger sister turns eighteen, and then she can focus on her own life. But strange things have been happening at the resort—and it’s Nicholas who keeps coming to her rescue. When Nicholas is suddenly the one in trouble, Julia realizes he’s not quite what he seems—and that she’ll do anything to help the man who’s stolen her heart…  “ I have loved reading Ms. Chapman’s books for years now.  Ever since I found her first series about the time traveling Highlanders.  However, these new trilogies are even more outstanding and The Heart of a Hero is nearly the best yet…yes I said nearly! I felt that there was just something a tiny bit off with this book.  This book is about Nicholas, with no last name! He is a mythical and mystical time traveler (sort of) from the lost Island of Atlantis. He is the head of security at Nova Mare and has been head of security for about a year.  This is where he meets with Julia, a seemingly disaster prone woman \who lives with her abusive father so she can save money to get her younger sister out of this small town and to give her a college education. There are so many wonderful characters in this novel that you can sometimes have a little difficulty keeping some of them straight. But, as you keep reading it all becomes clear and the first few chapters are quite exciting as Nicholas tries to be a hero and save Julia from one of her father’s drunken, violent rampages. My problem is this – the father plays such an important role in these chapters, that it totally surprised me that Julia and Nicholas didn’t have another confrontation with him later in the book just to close that plot line. I have not know Ms. Chapman to have done something like this before.  She will add to the starting issue but never just drop it like this. There are several other plot lines running at the same time.  Of course there is Nicholas’s and Julia’s sort of romance. Then there is one that includes Rana, Titus’s wife and is the basis for Ms. Chapman’s next book out in August (For the Love of Magic).      As usual, all of the characters a written with depth, quirks and the capacity to see the magic all around them.  They have that ability to be strong women, but to know just when to let the loves of their lives take over. The secondary characters really make this a more complete story.  The descriptions of the Maine countryside really makes me want to go back and find my own Spellbound Falls.